“This is an engraving of Wenceslaus Hollar’s map of London after the fire. The white area shows the extent of the ruins – 436 acres in total (373 acres within the City walls and 63 outside). This was about one-third of the total size of London at the time. Over the winter this area became the haunt of thieves. They looted the destroyed buildings and dragged passers-by into cellars, robbing them and leaving them for dead. People were afraid to go there at night. The rebuilding started in a piecemeal fashion as and when people found the money. Samuel Rolle commented in 1668 ‘Is London a village that I see, the houses in it stand so scatteringly?’ He also noticed that people were reluctant to move into their new, isolated, homes: ‘they refrain to go to them till their neighbourhood be increased’.” – See more

London, 1695 Robert Morden (detail from Middlesex in Camden’s Brittannia)